Increasing demand for wood and wood products is putting stress on traditional forest production areas, leading to long-term economic and environmental concerns. Intensively managed hardwood forest systems (IMHFS), grown using conventional agricultural as well as forestry methods, can help alleviate potential problems in natural forest production areas. Although IMHFS...

Statistical models are presented which relate near-view scenic beauty of ponderosa pine stands in the Southwest to variables describing physical characteristics. The models suggest that herbage and large ponderosa pine contribute to scenic beauty, while numbers of small and intermediate-sized pine trees and downed wood, especially as slash, detract from scenic beauty....

Using independent observations of actual and potential evapotranspiration at a wide range of spatial scales, we provide direct observational evidence of the complementary relationship in regional evapotranspiration hypothesized by Bouchet in 1963. Bouchet proposed that, for large homogeneous surfaces with minimal advection of heat and moisture, potential and actual...

In order to stay competitive and keep production costs at a minimum, wood pallet manufacturers must plan, monitor, and control their various production activities. Cost information on pallet manufacturing operations, must be gathered and analyzed so that the plant manager can determine whether certain activities are efficient and profitable. The Pallet Costing System (...

The Pallet Costing System (PCS) is a computer-based, Microsoft Windows® application that computes the total and per-unit cost of manufacturing an order of wood pallets. Information about the manufacturing facility, along with the pallet-order requirements provided by the customer, is used in determining production cost. The major cost factors addressed by PCS...

The Random Forests multiple-regression tree was used to model climate profiles of 25 biotic communities of the western United States and nine of their constituent species. Analyses of the communities were based on a gridded sample of ca. 140,000 points, while those for the species used presence-absence data from ca. 120,000 locations. Independent variables included 35...

The North American hardwood dimension and components industry plays a critical role in the hardwood forest products industry as the industry is a user of high-value hardwood lumber. Customer expectations, global markets, and international competition, however, require hardwood dimension and components manufacturers to continuously improve their ability to manage their...

Accurate and timely product costing information is critically important for companies in planning the optimal utilization of company resources. While an overestimation of product costs can lead to loss of potential business and market share, underestimation of product costs can result in financial losses to the company. This article introduces a product costing program...